Belief in witches--Survival of water ordeal--Witches turned into hares-- Cruelties practised on witches--Bishop Jewel on the "evil eye"-- Fairies--Berkshire popular superstitions--Field-names--Homes of famous men--Washington Irving's description of an English village--Rural exodus--Conclusion.
There is yet another class of subjects connected with old village life, of absorbing interest and importance. I refer to the old superstitions and folklore which still linger on in the recollections of the "oldest inhabitant," and which ought to be at once treasured up, lest they should be altogether lost. The generation of those who believed firmly in the power of the "evil eye" of the witch, and who feared to disturb the revels of the fairies on their rings and mounds, is only just passing away. An old gipsy has told me some strange stories of the superstitions of former days. He has told me of the witch at Farnham who made the cows wild and prevented them from giving milk; of another witch who lived at Henley-on-Thames, and who when thrown into the river "floated like a cork." Here we have a survival of the old Saxon method of trying culprits by the water ordeal, often used in examining witches. This particular witch could turn herself into a hare, so my venerable gipsy friend, aged one hundred and six years, informed me, and the dogs hunted her. He told me of the Tadley witch, who "wished" several people, and greatly injured them. It seems to have been a common practice of the old witches to turn themselves into hares, in order to vex the squires, justices, and country parsons, who were fond of hunting, as the old dames could elude the speed of the swiftest dogs. An old writer states "that never hunters nor their dogs may be bewitched, they cleave an oaken branch, and both they and their dogs pass over it." Mary Dore, a witch of Beaulieu, Hampshire, used to turn herself into a hare in order to escape detection when caught in the act of wood-stealing, to which she was somewhat addicted.
Old women were rather harshly used in the days when people believed in the power of witches. If any farmer's cattle died, it was immediately concluded that the animals were bewitched; and some wretched old woman was singled out, and summarily tried and burnt. If anyone fell ill, some "witch" had evidently a waxen image of the sufferer, and stuck needles into it; and such was the power of the witch that, wherever the person was, he felt the stab of the cruel needle. Hence the witch had to be found and burnt. If the corn crops failed, was not witchcraft the cause? for had not old Mother Maggs been heard to threaten Farmer Giles, and had not her black cat been seen running over his fields? Even good Bishop Jewel did not disbelieve in the power of the evil eye. In preaching before Queen Elizabeth he said: "It may please Your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers are marvellously increased within Your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine away even unto the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. I pray God they never practise further than on the subject." To so great an extent did faith in the witches' fatal power prevail. Our forefathers used to believe in the existence of other, and more pleasant little companions than the old toothless witches--the bright little fairies who, on account of the neglect which they have received from the present generation of Englishmen, have, so it is reported, left our shores in disgust, never to return. The previous inhabitants of our villages did not so treat them; and did not the fairies always bring them luck? They nailed the horseshoe to the stable door to keep out the witches, lest the old beldams should ride their steeds by night to the witches' revels; but no one wished to exclude the fairies. Did not the dairymaids find the butter ready churned, and the cows milked by these kind assistants? Was there not an old lady in Yorkshire who knew all about the fairies, had often heard them making butter, and had seen the butter smeared all over the gate by a little green man with a queer cap who had been seen slipping under a culvert? Canon Atkinson told us of this lady who knew all these strange things, and of the Hart Hall "Hob" who worked so hard with his flail, and of many other curious folk who frequented the Yorkshire moors in olden days. The last witch had just died before he went to Danby, but he found the whole atmosphere of the folklore firmament so surcharged with the being and work of the witch, that he seemed able to trace her presence and her activity in almost every nook and corner of the neighbourhood.